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Dayton High School Senior Madeline Cavazos spent the month of July in Washington DC, working as a Congressional Page for Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Here is her story about that great experience.
By Madeline Cavazos
I admit it. I used to watch C-Span, look at the men and women entrusted with the voice of the people, and ruminate over the excitement and tradition of the legislative process. I always had a vague dream that someday I would be there, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, amid the history and the history-in-the-making. Thanks to the Congressional Page program, I was privileged enough to get to fulfill that dream a little earlier than expected. I was able to travel to Washington DC and work on Capitol Hill this July as a US House of Representatives Page for Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.
Mr. Stewart, our superintendent, first informed me of the opportunity to become a page in the US House of Representatives. I knew what the position of page entailed, as several of my friends had been pages in the Washington State legislature. I had several weeks from the time I found that I had been selected to the time I left, so I had time to come up with all sorts of conjectures about what it would be like to work on Capitol Hill, but all my expectations fell far short of the incredible experience I had over the summer.
As the nation's capital, Washington DC is a congregating site for some of the most intelligent, the most opinionated and the most interesting people I've ever met. This includes the protesters on the sidewalk, the students at Georgetown University, and, of course, the politicians who run our country. One of the most thrilling things about being a page was the people I met and saw.
I watched as Dennis Kucinich proposed his latest plan for impeaching the president, passed Ron Paul on a back staircase late one night, and took pictures of House Minority Leader John Boehner. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the third most powerful person in the country, smiled as she walked past me and a couple of my friends, asking us how we were. We were a little awestruck, barely managing a response.
Then, of course, there was Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, my representative and sponsor. The first time I met her was on the House floor, in the middle of a vote. She invited me to sit with her as the voting continued and I felt honored to sit next to her as she discussed issues with colleagues and made small talk with me. We also had lunch together in the Members Only Dining Room. On the way down, she told me that her grandfather had lived in Dayton and pointed out to me the blood-stains on a section of the marble stairs, a remnant of a violent altercation between a lawyer and a congressman that no one seems to have been able to ever get out.
The Capitol Building itself was awe-inspiring and huge. The first day there, I despaired of ever finding my way efficiently through the underground labyrinth of tunnels connecting the office buildings and the capitol building. By the third week, though, I knew all the shortcuts and secret passageways. Although I spent far more time below ground than above it, the rest of the pages and I occasionally wandered through the upper levels of the Capitol Building. We also got official tours, including a dome tour, when we were taken all the way up to the outside of the top of the dome, where we stood on a narrow walkway and got a new persepective of the city.
When we weren't being treated to special tours or taking pictures with eminent men and women, we were working. Our work day was usually from 9:00 to 5:00, except if we volunteered to stay late or if they weren't in session. When they were in session, there was always something to do. Although each page was sponsored by a representative, we did not work solely for them. In fact, I only went to Cathy McMorris' office a couple of times on errands. Instead, there were two desks at the back of the house floor, one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats. If an office needed something done, they would call their respective desk. Whatever page happened to be near the desk would run the errand. I went on runs for everyone from Doc Hastings from Washington to Virgil Goode from Virginia. There were co-sponsor sheets and posters of statistics and graphs to bring back to the Republican cloakroom, the room off of the right of the house floor where the Republican representatives could congregate during session, or those mysterious sealed envelopes marked "To Be Read by Addressee Only". One of the big jobs was being a flag page. People can contact their representatives and request that an American flag be flown over the Capitol and then sent to them, so every day hundreds of flags had to be taken to different offices. Two Republican pages took all of the flags for Republican representatives and delivered them all, which was a big job. Floor pages would cater to the needs of the representatives on the House floor. These positions rotated every day, so everyone experienced each one.
Perhaps the greatest part of the experience was the people, and not the famous, powerful ones, but my fellow pages. I met seventy teenagers from across the country and lived, worked, and played with them for a month. We were of different political affiliations, ethnicities and religions, but we became very close during that month. I found all of them to be informed, articulate, and, most importantly, genuinely good people. It was very difficult to leave, but I have stayed in contact with many of them.
I still watch C-Span sometimes, but now it is with a touch of nostalgia, a greater understanding of what really goes on in the legislative process, and a sincere hope to return to the floor someday, in whatever capacity that may be.
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